The Totalintern exploited the weaknesses of American society — appealing to an array of post-60s American personas; the cynical leftist, the lazy racist, the pretentious pseudo-intellectual, & the angry celebrity.

When I scroll through the infamous “comment section” of a news article with statements by apathetic leftists or jobless rightists regarding the topic of, lets say for example, “US Noninterventionism”.

I’ll see something like: “AMERICA KILLED HALF A MILLION IRAQIS.”

Yes, & Saddam fed them watermelon & cheese.

The Totalintern & their “patsies” have coopted indigenous struggles too, such as the liberation of Palestine.

It has been all talk for half a century.

Tensions between smaller nations are assets for the Totalintern too, like the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, over the occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel, or the conflict between Armenia & Azerbaijan, over the occupation of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) by Azerbaijan.

The former occupation was initially orchestrated by Clement Attlee of England which then was replaced by leadership America; and the latter occupation by Stalin which was then replaced by leadership in Russia.

The rise of Donald Trump is reminiscent in a lot of ways of Adolf Hitler.

This correlation has been perhaps run dry and overplayed by the media, but there is a deeper ring to it than just the hateful rhetoric and outright evil policy ambitions these two have in common.

Besides Hitler’s ideological madness, beneath it all, was a political man seeking his own ends. Hitler was not just a Nazi – he was a politician. This often meant betraying his own, fellow “Nazis”.

Hitler also betrayed the Soviets once he realized he could. But its important to remember that he was also their ally for some time – the “communists” – the alleged Jewish arch-enemies of Nazism – until that is, he found no more need for such an alliance.

This erratic behavior is consistent with Donald Trump who – perhaps now finds it convenient to rally his followers behind an anti-globalist and pro-fascist tirades – but soon this might shift as trends do. In other words, Trump is fickle to his own agenda. He doesn’t have one. It is – whatever keeps him in power – in front of the cameras – and his party and entourage behind him. He exercises this privilege because the US is the world’s superpower. It can afford such lunacy. Most other countries that entertain such blatant flamboyant theatrics in politics are third world tyrannies…(North Korea).

The third world dictatorial hitlerian like conspiratorial narrative echoed by Trump and his followers resonates with them because for every troubled soul – blaming society or others is the remedy – and it appears now there are many troubled…white protestant male souls. Sure – there are many injustices in the world – but there is no need to reduce them to YouTube like conspiracy theories – we can address them coherently without diluting them with unscientific conjecture.

Trump’s weakest point in the debate came at two moments – first was his rejection of American norm of democracy. Second was his inability to more tacitly answer questions about his foreign relations with Russia. Whether true or not, his display of incompetence almost made him look guilty. His rejection of the election results not only drew gasps from the crowd – it echoed across the living rooms of Americans nationwide. How could he insult us this way? How could the Republican Party enable him? This is outright betrayal and to be frank – I am fully emphatic of Hillary Clinton when she displays her complete intolerance and outrage at Trump’s complete and utter disrespect of America, and for everything which it stands.

Ultimately the Russians are looking for someone who is willing to fight terrorism and stay out of their sphere of influence. While rhetoric seems contrary, Hillary is much less likely to flirt with the idea of WWIII with Russia then perhaps Donald Trump if the latter determines that he or his cohorts may have interests in such a war – get my drift? I believe much of what Hillary (and all Democrats) are forced to exhibit is a sense of ultranationalism so as to counter the right-wing paranoia encouraged by the GOP and emblazoned across the mainstream media. But in reality, Democrats (and Clinton would follow suit) are less hawkish, relative to the GOP. Compare Obama to Bush, Clinton (Bill) to Bush Sr., JFK to Nixon…The Democratic creed is one of tolerance, diversity, equality, democracy, freedom, opportunity and justice – even when such may be less profitable for the individual. On the contrary, the GOP’s ideal often compromises the collective good for the sake of an individual profit. This is not capitalism – this is abuse of power. The Democrats are a force for freedom and dignity in America; and for unity globally. What needs to be acknowledged however among Democrats is that neither democracy nor justice nor political development can be achieved in foreign countries through interventionism – perhaps Bernie Sanders can rub off on the rest of them.

Democrats are more inclined towards cooperation with foreign countries. For this reason, despite the theatrics displayed in the election, it might be arguable that the Russians might prefer a President Clinton over Trump. Trump is exploiting Russia’s uneasy relations with the US for his own gain – something which might (and most likely will) change sporadically. Clinton is consistent – and also values reconciliation as evidenced by the Nuclear Deal with Iran which she basically initiated and oversaw. Clinton’s experience, and her humility, is likely to characterize her as more suitable for the position of President of the world’s sole superpower – a position which affects not just Americans, but citizens of the world.

Bernie Sanders was not presidential [sadly to say – despite many of his ideals being great – if not the best compared to his counterparts].

That is something the American people are struggling to grasp – especially the youth.

What is – ‘presidential’?

Donald Trump – is not presidential. But for reasons different than Bernie. Bernie is, well, simply put, without any character, really. Despite all the slogans and witty catch phrases, Bernie is just another product of social trends. He isn’t Justin Trudeau. He isn’t Obama. He just doesn’t have any flair. Americans like intellect – but they equally value humor; athleticism; suaveness – or “swagger” in today’s terminology. None of these are characteristic of Sanders.

The same could be said of Donald Trump but for different reasons. He is too uneducated, vulgar, impolite, erratic & irresponsible for such leadership – if not to hold any post. He can barely manage his own funds – or his father’s, rather.

That isn’t to say that Hillary Clinton is ‘presidential’.

Back in ’08, I hadn’t heard of a guy named Barack Obama, but as the campaign progressed, I realized – I had just witnessed the rise of an extraordinary individual. This man is beyond brilliant – something that few people truly appreciate. I can say that the world appreciates Obama more than America – which is quite telling. That isn’t necessarily true – a lot of Americans love our current president. But the ‘other side’ is equally if not more bent on voicing their hatred – to put it ‘mildly’.

Ahead of tonight’s momentous occasion, the first live debate between Clinton & Trump – I share the following sentiment. People often expect too much. This is a sign of…a lack of experience maybe. But other forces play a role too. The world is suffering and yet, the average American struggles to understand the nooks and crannies of his or her own political system and culture.

As an Armenian-Syrian immigrant living in America – I must say that my perspective should be heeded. There are many causes which are directly connected to me that have yet to be addressed or have been horribly managed, by the US wholly but also precisely by US president Barack Obama, whom I continue to support. Why? Because I am not a perfectionist in the political sense – and expect some compromise – not always – but in times of necessity and urgency. There is much change, and much work to be done in the stride towards justice – but it is just that – a stride – a path. We cannot be held back by radical expectations which in themselves seek to paralyze our sense of progress. That being said it is clear to me there is only one candidate worthy of a vote in this election and that reasoning is from contrived a moral and practical logic – that candidate is Hillary Clinton.

So while she isn’t necessarily the perfect candidate – relative to America’s choices – she is definitely presidential.

The US president is a person of immense wisdom and discipline; responsibility and sacrifice; public service and family value. Which of the two candidates possesses these qualities? And if you have to think twice – think again.

What gets me is that Americans want to change parts of their system that are less relevant to domestic and global wellbeing while ignoring the more pressing issues. And then when a tragedy or crisis occurs, Americans are left wondering how or why. Instead of a Wall Street revolution there should be a minority rights and immigration reform revolution. Instead of a focus on spreading democracy abroad we should be seeking to reduce our arbitrary and partial political influence overseas. Issues like these are costing us – but instead Americans wish to focus on ideological ambiguities and polarized politics.

That is why the candidates have dwindled down to the current options available – one representing the so-called establishment while the other represents the ugliest part of the establishment disguised as anti-establishment.

It is undoubtable that America and the world must implement comprehensive political reform – but this is likely an impossible feat under the auspices of a hypothetical President Trump. On the contrary, Hillary, like Obama (but perhaps to a lesser degree since she is more hawkish) – will pave the road for future generations to at least further the cause of progressivism in its purest form.

Perhaps future generations will reflect a more balanced perspective on US politics – representing minorities; women; LGBTQ; etc. But this cannot be associated with any particular ideological strand or populist trend as it has been in this election. American individualism and personal responsibility, contrary to the ‘8th grader youtube conspiracy video viewer mentality’ – is not preserved or protected by the far left or right – but rather, by a careful, tolerant moderate centrist. So when I say that Hillary Clinton is in fact presidential – that is precisely why. She isn’t just the echo of our grievances – but also of our reason.

Time and time again, we hear about the causes of injustice and instability in the Middle East.

There are about four main causes offered from analyses on this region. Each of them point to internal factors, though somehow quite different from one another.

But none of them recognize the possibility that instability is not a domestic ailment.

How could democratic institutionalism evade the Middle East for so long?

Here too, an anthology of theories has been written.

Getting into all the explanations would require too much attention, a luxury that modern high speed internet cannot afford to its consumers.

The main argument echoed in the halls of western political debate rooms blames ruthless dictators and Islamic crazies.

A list of more intricate explanations exist too.

None of them point to external factors.

But none of them can truly explain the distinctive features of the Middle East that make it lag significantly behind other regions in terms of democratic reform and political stability, like for example Latin America, where similar conditions exist: colonial history & resource abundance.

Why has America, and before it Europe, exercised endless security initiatives in the Middle East since the end of World War II? The US and Israel remain the only two occupying forces in the Middle East.

Research supports the logic that suicide terrorism is linked to foreign occupation.

US interventionism is not beneficial to the US nor to the international community. Violations of sovereignty are the primary cause of global instability. Whether or not democracy should evolve in a particular country is a domestic issue. Furthermore, cultural values must be considered to determine whether democratic political institutions can endure. Albeit, by injecting itself in the affairs of other countries, a US foreign policy of interventionism incites radicalism, paralyzes political development, and violates universal principles of self-determination and sovereignty. It was a the democratically elected leader of Iran, President Mossadegh, who was ousted in a CIA-led coup d’etat, which produced the mess that is radicalism and sectarianism today in the Middle East. World powers have played a hypocritical role in the region, loaning aid to authoritarian dictatorships and Islamic radicals simultaneously (Saddam & al Qaeda, for example), pinning two counterintuitive initiatives against one another – neocolonialism in plain-sight.

If democracy is in fact possible in the Middle East, its chances of seeing the light of day are being dimmed by the political hubris of world powers, namely the US.

A more liberal strand of Islam might argue that cultural identity is tied to Islamic heritage. Furthermore, it encompasses all philosophy and knowledge into Islam, as opposed to radical Islam which excludes philosophies from the Enlightenment, Renaissance, and the mystical indigenous religions of various regions in the world, like Central Asia and Latin America.

What if identity, whether it is Chinese, or Syrian, is also tied to an Islamic consciousness?

Let us say for example that Confucius was a Muslim. But only in the philosophical sense.

Let us say that Islam, is a philosophy too, a form of consciousness that becomes intertwined with language and custom.

If that is the case, instead of isolating extremism in Islam – what if we look at national struggles for national representation as well as national struggles for independence through the lens of a struggle for a higher level of consciousness?

In communist China, Islam is systemically suppressed. In the West, Islam is discriminated against. In the Middle East, from where it originates, it is disenfranchised from the political process. Palestine, the crux of Islamic scripture, remains occupied. Mecca, resides in a politically corrupt nation-state. The vast majority of Muslims, shiite or sunni, are living in poverty due both to foreign occupation and arbitrary authoritarian government. Russia is united with many forces, some its enemies, like the US in the fight against radicalism, of course, without looking at the initial cause.

In today’s world we see North Korea and Russia and Iran and China as US arch-rivals. But how can we be so sure? It appears premature to assume that enemies on the media aren’t cooperating behind closed doors. Does the US not benefit from the existence of a constant menace? Fanatical ideology or religion, whether it is coming from ISIS or North Korea, isn’t the concern of the great powers.

The world powers are still playing their great game, and they are doing their utmost to prevent the emergence of an autonomous Middle East (or Latin America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia) that can balance their power, out of arrogance as well as out of the desire to exploit resources and prevent any fair competition in the Middle East.

And fanaticism is working in their favor too, because it does nothing to promote national sovereignty – in fact, it is almost carrying out the neoconservative deed under the guise of a Salafi strain of Islam.

A united, moderate and tolerant Middle East would counter all of these forces – but the greatest obstacle to this includes all the puppet regimes in the Middle East which have resisted challenging Israel militarily – the crucible of Middle Eastern conflict and instability. Once the leadership in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt is overthrown, the Arab front against imperialism can actually hold its ground.

The so-called Arab Spring was a delusional, western manufactured initiative distracting everyone from the real cause of conflict in the Middle East – Occupation.

Democracy is a concept meant for parts of the world where religious sensitivity and culture does not overwhelm the philosophical expectations of the individual. Ideologies like neoconservatism and communism all have threatened the peace and sovereignty of the Middle East. The Arab Spring was a farce attempt in this regard, as much as communism was to liberate Afghanistan, America to liberate Afghanistan afterwards, or Iraq, Libya, Yemen and so forth.

Whether political immorality is exercised by the Chinese, Russians or the Americans, does not matter – the point is that a brainwashing game is being played on the media to blur the lines between good and bad.

But all you need to do to understand who the bad guy is have a basic understanding of boundaries – and that when boundaries are crossed, war ensues.

That boundary has been, since 1948, Palestine.

Until sovereignty is respected, the brainwash will continue, and so too shall conflict.

In reality, America possesses two qualities which render this assumption baseless.

America is majority Anglo-Saxon; America has been deeply entangled in the foreign affairs of England and the rest of Europe.

The isolationist narrative is deeply flawed and misleading. But it isn’t surprising. America is nation that sees itself as exceptional to the rest of the world. There is only one other country which possesses a similar characteristic – Israel. Both nations, are born out of ideology, not ethnic identity or language. These are conceptual nations, both of which in actuality stole land from indigenous populations. The Europeans, are actually tied to their land historically through language and culture that is distinct. Religion is secondary.

Even the Europeans engaged foreign domination but America replaced them as the unipolar hegemony. We view America and the concept of democracy as somehow special, original and superior. We think of individualism as only possible here. We see capitalism as the only security of human innovation.

But much of this narrative rests on one presumption – the political domination of the international political arena by England and America.

Just because the era of colonialism ended – does not entail the end of colonialism itself.

Since the first balance of power was realized and established by the European order between all powerful nation-states via the Treaty of Westphalia, a change as overtaken the world, due in part to technological and industrial revolutions but more importantly, to policy-decisions by elites to disrupt the tradition of balance of power for the sake of preserving American and British domination over global affairs. This has perpetuated stereotypes of all social groups and nation-states, only enabled by inequality in the global spectrum. This international political reality cannot be separated from the socio-economic miseries within each country in the world. They are all intertwined.

Prosperity and individual happiness have been, in the West, associated with capitalism and democracy. In Europe, while this is true, there is a sense of cultural heritage that preserves and cultivates unity among the population. In America, the population is more polarized – there is less cultural influence on political affairs and more ideological influence in the States.

But if corruption is equally rampant in America, then it is unfair to presume that any nation deserves the position of unipolar hegemony. Unipolar hegemony depends on domination and violations of sovereignty. The British, who attempted this more overtly in the past, faced a similar fate in India as America is currently facing in the Muslim world – brutal and irrational retaliation to a century of arbitrary occupation.

Why is America policing the world? Nobody should be.

But given the reality of politics and the possibility of an emerging threat to balance, nations act both preemptively and directly. Now that technology has enabled nations to communicate more easily, is bipolarity the natural state of politics? For the last three decades, was the Cold War merely warming up?

Whereas the conflict at once was portrayed as capitalism versus communism, is the war really between neoconservatism (imperialism guised with good intent and fear of threat, usually via democratization) versus nationalism (the ambition for sovereignty)?

Realism assumes the intent of domination; and suggests its potentiality. But what if this human quality is a cultural phenomenon more common to the West? Considering democracies prevalence in the West, and the West’s engagement in neoconservative foreign policy, could it be argued that, culturally, the West is more inclined towards domination, whereas, other states are more inclined towards national sovereignty and cultural values and traditions that may not necessarily be majoritarian democracy?

This is the basis of constructivism, a theory of international relations which explains the behavior of states as relative to their cultural orientations. Various institutions of politics are, along this line of thinking, social constructed.

The menace to global peace is neoconservatism. And while at one point communism was seen as the nemesis, it could be argued from the constructivist stance that communism was a response to American and European expansionism into the domains of other dominant powers. Today, the force attempting to resist this is now a loose coalition of Russian expansionism, Chinese assertiveness, Latin American disenchantment, European disintegration, Middle Eastern and African tumult. I argue these all would not exist in a world without an aggressive neoconservative menace.

Either it will be contained, or violence on both ends will rise.

Just like the world organized to contain communism, perhaps now the world is slowly rallying to contain America’s neoconservative trajectory.

The relationship between technology and power is rather complex. There are numerous theories that technological advancement is the key to strength and prosperity – in parts of the world where such evolution did not occur, political institutions and therefore economies developed less (Diamond 1999). Technological evolution has especially revolutionized America’s modern military, as well as the military capabilities of other nations. Since today’s world no longer exhibits a Soviet Union, newer threats have emerged, particularly in the form of radical terrorism, but also by the assertiveness of China, Russia and India, who possess technologically advanced weaponry too.

World War II marked the beginning of a new age, with the creation of the nuclear bomb, as well as revolutions in aviation, mechanization and information (Krepinevitch 2006). There are various instances in history of major shifts in technology which almost coincide with changes in the nature of warfare. Perhaps America’s military and technological superiority have created the current scenario in which the only global hegemony, the US lacks a coherent “enemy” or “threat” in the form of a state. Rather, this modern counterforce is splintered into terrorist networks across the globe.

The modern technological shift has taken the form of unmanned drones, as well as long-distance warheads. Drones have enabled policymakers in the US to conduct military operations without employing any troops. A prime and often cited example of this is the use of US drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan both for surveillance and to eliminate targets – but this tactic has arguably not changed the trajectory of US policy. Rather, it has refined it by further exploiting the technological primitiveness of the opposition. Two other factors limit the vast influence which the Revolution in Miliary Affairs could affect policy – the accountability of American democracy & perhaps more ambiguously America’s moral idealism. Together, these two traditions have arguably helped to limit indiscriminate use of modern military means. Furthermore, the War in Iraq demonstrates how nation-states are willing to employ troops on the ground despite technology superiority over their enemies. Perhaps this implies that policy is less motivated by technological advancement and more by the threat of attack as well as economic interest.